Done with Virgin Media

[chrisbm]

that's it, i've had enough. our area (15 / nw3) has been having problems since february, and in the last few months goes out for hours / days at a time.

as i type this, it's down yet again with a fix date of 4 days from now. I've had to pay EE another £22 p/m for a sim to use in a 4g router just so i can get any work done. that's on top of the £60 p/m i pay virgin.

as soon as this contract is up i'm moving to g.network. 6 months of terrible area problems with no fix in sight is unacceptable.

been a customer for 20 years, but everything comes to an end i guess

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Interesting post.

I upgraded to 1 gig in Dec. Home hub3 to hub4 believing that would fix my problems.

VMs engineer told me it was my computers, phones, LAN cables etc....

Well I've documented my experience and here's the short of it - I just had BT fibre installed today.

The exact same cat 8 cables, exact same computers and phones and the BT Broadband is beating VM to a pulp.

900 meg and every test is riding 750meg on average.  16ms latency.

1 gig VM at most 3 to 350 meg.  30+ms latency.

TV same story for lost audio and crashes.  HDMI cables, check your volume.  Your TV is to blame.

BT TV no issues with my same HDMI cables and TV.

Been a customer for 17 nearly 18 years, terminated contract early and it goes middle of next month I am told.

[chrisbm]

As I type this it’s down yet again, after being down when I needed it most during the day. Absolute joke. 

[Anonymous]

I don't have any suggestions for you but....

I have found it interesting as I'd never been with any other provider. 

It wasn't maybe two/three years ago I pushed for a discount saying I wanted to leave and the VM guy

said we'd used x number of gig this month.  No one can offer better speeds than them so where was I going to go?, he was right of course. 

He isn't now.

[chrisbm]

for sure, when it works VM is great (i have a 1gb connection as well), but it simply doesn't work any more.

It used to.. perfectly, year after year after year, but now it doesn't. Discounts are no good to me - I'm still paying for something that doesn't work reliably. I'd rather pay *more* for something with a better uptime. I'm paying two companies £80+ per month just to maintain a working internet connection. I'd rather pay one company £70 p/m if it's reliable.

Of course until recently there was no competition, but now the marketplace is starting to fill up with fibre competitors, all hungry to steal business. Virgin can't deliver the service I'm paying for any more, so I'll happily give that money to someone who can.

[jbrennand]

A few Q's
___________

Are the issues only evident on wifi connections or do you see them at the same times on devices connected on ethernet cables? If you don't know, can you check to help diagnose whether it is just a wifi issue or it could be network connection related?

What are the various Hub lights showing/doing when this happens?
_____________________________________________________

Have you checked first for “known network faults”

As well as trying the “check service,” Area status webpage" (link at top right of this forum), also try the “free & automated” Service Status number - 0800 561 0061 - which usually gives the most up to date info. and tells you of more local issues down to postcode level. If nothing reports on there, there may be an overutilisation issue

If you set up a BQM it ought to be obvious.

Set up a free and secure “Broadband Quality Monitor” to continually monitor the state of your connection and record any true network dropouts , latency issues, packet drops, etc - it will thus allow you to differentiate between those and simple wifi dropouts. It does it 24/7/365 and it keeps a visual record of any/all of your network disconnections, useful data to have to match to the Network logs (in your Hub settings) and also in discussions with VM - note it will take a few hours to start seeing a sensible picture - post up the “link” to the “share live graph” (as per instructions on the TB website) when it starts to develop.

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality

[chrisbm]

Honestly, this isn't an issue with my kit or my house. It's a well-known issue in our area. Creaking infrastructure and titanic over-utilisation, as reported and documented by countless VM engineers / technical & customer service staff etc etc. Our local Nextdoor forum is full of people screaming about how much they hate virgin media and looking to leave. Just one example. Look at how many comments there are: 

[jbrennand]

Sound like it may be due to overutilisation - a BQM will reveal that.

See this recent thread re. over-utilisation and Andrew’s comments in Message 4

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Networking-and-WiFi/Jitter-and-latency/m-p/4609932#M378967

[chrisbm]

no doubt, but i'm unwilling to put in any further work with VM. They have a product problem - they can either fix it or lose customers. It's an incredibly simple business dynamic.

[jbrennand]

OK good luck with your new ISP